Toshiba Corp.’s local disk drive unit is following its bigger rivals into the market for drives for consumers.
This week, Toshiba plans to come out with a line of portable drives sold in stores for storing and backing up music, photos, videos, TV shows and other files.
“The products are the first step of a full-blown push into the retail channel, with products targeted at the end user,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing for Toshiba’s storage device unit, part of Irvine-based Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.
The company, a unit of Tokyo-based Tos-hiba, is set to go head to head with Lake Forest-based Western Digital Corp. and Scotts Valley-based Seagate Technology in the market for drives that link to computers, rather than sit inside them.
Most drives made still go into computers from Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and others. But sales of external drives at stores are growing. In the Dec-ember quarter, 17% of Western Digital’s $1.4 billion in sales came from products sold in stores, up from 5% a year earlier.
Seagate, the No. 1 drive maker, and No. 2 Western Digital already have a big head start selling to consumers.
Toshiba has been a dominant player in small drives for laptop computers and for handheld music and video players. The company also is a longtime supplier of notebook drives for Toshiba computers as well as for Dell, HP and Gateway Inc. in Irvine.
With its portable drives, Toshiba is going after everyday folks who may have a laptop, digital camera and music player, Brzeski said.
“Our product is really intended at a less-technical audience,” he said. “The current products out there are too complicated.”
Toshiba is taking cues from the design gurus at Apple Inc.
“Ours is a very simple industrial design,” Brzeski said.
The drives have up to 200 gigabytes in a sleek little package. Each is about 5.5-inches long, 3.5-inches wide and an inch thick.
The drive is encased in black aluminum with plastic ends to channel out heat.
User Friendly
It’s designed to power up upon being connected to a computer via a universal serial bus port. The drive’s operating software runs in the background and backs up files whenever you want,hourly, daily or weekly.
“It doesn’t need any external power supply and there’s not a button on it,” Brzeski said. “We wanted to name it the ‘Hassle-Free Backup’ but it didn’t pass legal.”
The drives come in 100, 120, 160 and 200 gigabytes.
They’re primarily made in Japan and final assembled by a subcontractor in Hong Kong, according to Brzeski.
He declined to say which companies would distribute the drives to stores, but it’s likely Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. is on the short list.
Toshiba faces tough competition from Seagate and Western Digital, as well as smaller players.
“The hard drive market is a very crowded space,” Brzeski said. Portable drives are “creating a lot more segments and opportunities for everybody to play in.”
Toshiba had about 8% of the market for all drives in the fourth quarter, behind Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co., according to market tracker iSuppli Corp. of El Segundo.
In 2006, 2.6 million external drives were shipped, up 37% from a year earlier, iSuppli said.
Demand for external drives comes from the growing crop of people looking to store and backup large video and audio files downloaded from the Web, said Krishna Chander, senior analyst for storage systems at iSuppli.
Toshiba has high hopes for its push.
The company aims to have external drives make up half of its storage business in time, Brzeski said.
“We want to be in the top three in terms of the manufacturers in this segment,” he said.
Toshiba is betting on the idea that its brand is a household name, unlike some of its rivals.
The company plans to market the drives through online advertising and direct mail. It’s also trying to create buzz by sponsoring a sweepstakes contest for the “most prized digital memories.”
The drives are set to be sold online at Amazon.com, Buy.com, CDW and Ritz Camera. Big office supply and electronics stores are set to get the products as they roll out next week. Prices range from $130 to $230.
Toshiba’s storage device division employs about 60 local workers. Altogether, Toshiba employs about 1,562 workers in the area, including at three other U.S. companies based here.
